How fast will we need to adapt to global warming? ‘Societies will be faced with the decision of whether to defend or abandon cities threatened by sea-level rise’

STANFORD, California, 4 October 2016 (Carnegie Science) – What would we do differently if sea level were to rise one foot per century versus one foot per decade? Until now, most policy and research has focused on adapting to specific amounts of climate change and not on how fast that climate change might happen. Using […]

UN refugee agency: Mediterranean death toll soars, 2016 is deadliest year yet – ‘This is the worst we have ever seen’

25 October 2016 (UN) – With just two months left in 2016, and despite a substantial drop in the number of migrants and refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean, the number of people losing their lives has witnessed a three-fold overall increase this year, and in one particular route by more than five-fold, the United […]

Amazon rainforest degradation increased 272 percent in September 2016 compared with 2015

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo20 October 2016 (Imazon) – In September 2016, Imazon’s Deforestation Alert System (SAD) detected 387 square kilometres of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. This represented an increase of 69% compared to September 2015, when deforestation totaled 229 square kilometers. In September […]

Grassland tuned to present environmental conditions suffers in a hotter future – Study finds no CO2 fertilization effect

STANFORD, California, 5 September 2016 (Carnegie Science) – One of the world’s longest-running, most comprehensive climate change experiments produced some surprising results. The extensive experiment subjected grassland ecosystems to sixteen possible future climates and measured many aspects of ecosystem performance and sustainability. This study, appearing in the September 5, 2016, Early Online Edition of the […]

In new ozone alert, a warning of harm to plants and to people – ‘We are on track to return to the maximum ethane levels we saw in the 1970s in only about three more years’

By Jim Robbins17 October 2016 (Yale e360) – For the last four years Jack Fishman, a professor of meteorology at St. Louis University, has guided the planting of five gardens in the Midwest, gardens that have a distinct purpose: to show the impacts of an invisible gas that is damaging and contributing to the premature […]

IMF says global debt tops all-time high at $152 trillion

By David Lawder; Editing by Marguerita Choy 5 October 2016 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The world is swimming in a record $152 trillion in debt, the IMF said on Wednesday, even as the institution encourages some countries to spend more to boost flagging growth if they can afford it. Global debt, both public and private, reached […]

Global economy could ‘self-destruct’ if world carries on burning fossil fuels, leading economist warns

By Ian Johnston5 October 2016 (Independent) – A renowned economist who helped persuade the world to start taking climate change seriously has warned the global economy could “self-destruct” if countries fail to ditch fossil fuels and embrace a clean, green, high-tech future. Professor Lord Nicholas Stern was credited with bringing about a sea change in […]

Report revels 56 percent of UK species have declined since 1970 and 1,199 species are threatened with extinction

By Dr. Barnaby Smith14 September 2016 (CEH) – The State of Nature 2016 UK report is launched by Sir David Attenborough and UK conservation and research organisations at the Royal Society in London this morning (Wednesday, September 14). Following on from the first State of Nature report published in 2013 the report reveals that over […]

Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacted bluefin tuna spawning habitat in Gulf of Mexico – ‘Population shows little evidence of rebuilding’

30 September 2016 (Stanford University) – The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was one of the largest environmental disasters in history, releasing roughly 4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. For Atlantic bluefin tuna, it occurred at the worst time of year, during peak spawning season, when eggs and larval fish that […]

Unprecedented Arctic change demands action: World Meteorological Organization

28 September 2016 (WMO) – Dramatic and unprecedented warming in the Arctic is driving sea level rise, affecting weather patterns around the world and may trigger even more changes in the climate system. The rate of change is challenging the current scientific capacity to monitor and predict what is becoming a journey into uncharted territory. […]

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